Building a lens/sensor Testing set-up.

TaoTeJared

So I am getting ready to offload a bunch of old gear and I am thinking it would be a good idea to build a "box" type setup and a system to continually test the gear I own, sell, buy, rent, etc. We have all seen what various review sites use, so I'm looking for helpful suggestions:
What type of shots do you like?
What type of items to you like to see in the shots?
Fill frame/center frame/corner of frame
best way to show sharpness/bokeh/morrie/fringing

I'm open to anything. I have a ton of knick-knacks that I can glue to a board to use.

What does everyone suggest, like, dislike, wish was shown.

paulr

Good Luck TT, It must be nice to have so much spare time on your hands

Msmoto

What a super idea! And, some of my thoughts would include building a board with both objects in front and behind the plane of focus. Maybe have small modules around the corners and edges, primarily to determine curvature of the focal plane. Several color charts spread judiciously around the scene, fine print, metal, avoid material which is difficult to ascertain if it is in focus…like certain cloth materials……

I am looking forward to this….

Juergen

Good idea!
Apart from the subjects, I think it is very important to have an environment wich is absolutely controllable and gives repeatable environmental conditions. Most significant of course is the ambient light.

Looking forward to what you are coming up with.
Jürgen

Rx4Photo

I've always fancied the idea of going to a wig shop and asking to have or buy an old styrofoam wig display head. I'd buy a cheap wig for it, glue some fake eyelashes on that thing and "sharpie" in the eyeballs. Then use that as a test subject to see where my focus was falling when testing lenses for portrait shooting. Who doesn't LOVE to get sharp eyelases when shooting portraits and it's not always appearent when shooting. I've used a homemade flat board type calibration tool but thought the head would be more realistic.

TaoTeJared

Good Luck TT, It must be nice to have so much spare time on your hands

It is more of a "spring cleaning" and tossing old useless garbage out from this last weekend that gave me the idea and believing everything should have a use for something. Won't cost a thing to do but a piece of poster board and a jar of glue. Just something I have kicked around for years.

Controlled environment - check. Been trying to think of a good place outside to go as well to see the lens's rendering of a scene. I live in a place with distinct seasons so that one may be a bit more difficult.

Styrofoam wig display head - I do have a styrofoam and a plastic one! I use a Lens Align to set my lenses up so that will work, was thinking of cutting a ruler into the head or somewhere else as well to get the DOF.

Great ideas, keep'em coming!

Golf007sd

How about renting the 58 1.4 and giving it test run?

TaoTeJared

Actually part of this also is that I want to compare all my 50s that I have. 8 in all (but two film only- Zeiss ZM & pentax 50mm 1.7). The lenses I would need are both Sigma 50s, Zeiss ZF.2, Otus, 58 1.2, 50 1.2, 55 1.2 and the new Sigma 30art for DX. Those 8 would give me every 50mm optical design for Nikon mount made in the last 15-25 years.

85mm (1.4 or 1.8), 60mm macro, and the 58 1.4 are on my lens list (in that order). I'm going to dump a bunch of less/never used stuff to do some of that. That's where the original idea came from.

Vipmediastar_JZ

@TaoTeJared UWA rokinon 14mm, nikon 20mm or the nikon zooms. I would like to see your results there

rmp

Great idea!

I would like to be able to take one picture with a new V3 with the new 70-300 lens and be able to make a quantitative statement about the image quality as compared to the same picture taken with another camera/lens combination. How can such a "single picture" test be accomplished? What can actually be tested in a single picture? ( I guess I've got some research to accomplish.
:-S

TaoTeJared

Let's keep working on a group of items to shoot, settings, and the like. I'm not really thinking of renting a bunch of lenses and bodies to do the whole sch-bang thing.

I would love to be able to test a ton of lenses - but even renting them that is at a minimum of $100 per pop. I have a feeling that some "reviewers" are actually buying, testing and returning equipment (which I have some real distaste for people who do that) or have some very close relationships with various shops to do the tests with. A few get some free test time from some manufactures, but that is far and few in-between. Would be fun though!

rmp

Hello All,

Have you worked out any dimensions fro this test scene?

rmp

What do you think of the camera/lens test charts and software at http://www.imatest.com/ ?

TaoTeJared

I like Imatest but way too expensive for me. I do think they have the best accurate test results though.

Hopefully I'll start pulling stuff together this week. I'm really trying to do something on a $10 budget with just stuff sitting around the house that is still easy to store.

Msmoto

I think one can create a lens test grid which will do the job adequately. A good printer can recreate the small color chart which can be placed several areas of the test grid.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fantinesfotos/6823093006/in/set-72157630044833773
Other test charts can be printed from various sources, like an old TV test pattern. Then, objects with detail can be placed around the set.
Size would be about 4' tall, 6' wide, on a table about 3' off the floor. And, I think someone on this forum may have a perfect place to set this up (rmp) with adequate room to test an 800mm…. http://www.flickr.com/photos/fantinesfotos/9152101881/in/set-72157634469595026
;;)